


Neither Foes Nor Loving Friends

by Rubynye



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Double Penetration, Eventual Happy Ending, Forced Orgasm, Gang Rape, M/M, Mind Control, Multi, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sibling Incest, Verbal Humiliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:40:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24932410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: The prompt is "Adventuring Party noncons The Party’s Healer (M/M)", and that's the summary too.
Relationships: Original Character(s)/Original Character(s), Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 14
Kudos: 36
Collections: Nonconathon 2020





	Neither Foes Nor Loving Friends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heeroluva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heeroluva/gifts).



> Written for the 2020 Nonconathon for the creatively minded Heeroluva. I hope you enjoy this!

Terrie stomps down the overlarge stairs as hard as his halfling feet can, Zimel’s post-peak words echoing between his pointed ears. _Like the best of lass and lad combined,_ as if he were at all a lass. Not that there’s anything wrong with lasses, but Terregar Whittle is no lass, and if Zimel hasn’t noticed during their several months together, he never will.

Zimel hadn’t even woken up when Terrie heaved his arm off and rolled out of bed. And he’d seemed so considerate, so thoughtful, so _perceptive_. Terrie snorts now, as his foot hits the landing and he looks up into the crowded, convivial common room. Looking around at the bustle and hubbub, Terrie spots a familiar-looking broad green back, and decides to head over. If he’s wrong he might have a good chat nevertheless.

But he turns out to be right, as he climbs up one of the runged stools to sit beside an old friend, Bazve the Half-orc, whose heart is the biggest thing about him. Bazve crows to see Terrie and pats him with a hand that nearly spans his whole back, stands him a lovely golden pint of ale and listens sympathetically as Terrie pours out the sad tale of his erstwhile lover’s insult. 

When Terrie’s done whining Bazve rubs his bristly chin and says, “You know, why don’t you come with me? I just joined up short-term with these lads, headed to finally deal with the Warlock of Whitewater, you’ve heard of that one?” Terrie nods — he’s heard the rumors of travelers vanishing, twisted animals roaming the area, screams in the night — “I’m certain they could use a healer. Take a couple weeks at most, I think.”

Terrie nods again, already convinced. “You’re the answer to my problems,” he says, watching Bazve’s undertusks glint as he grins wide. “I’ll meet your new band, let me just leave a note.” Zimel may have infuriated him, but he and Sineale deserve that notice at least. A short scribble and a couple coppers to the sable-haired barmaid, and Terrie climbs down from his stool to head out with Bazve.

* * *

Five days later Terregar sits beside his pack in a slender ash wood boat, nervously watching the waterfall draw closer and closer. Salfarin stands singing in the bow, his silver-edged brown hair flowing on the breeze, his hands glowing as he drives the boat upstream with his magic. It’s an inspiring image, and Salfarin radiates confidence, yet Terregar is on edge. It must be too much time in a boat.

Alaion watches Salfarin proudly, as befits a master observing his pupil. He’s shown less raw strength than Salfarin seems to possess, but the look in his eyes is ancient and crafty. Terregar considers asking if Salfarin resembles his elven mother in this moment, but decides to leave Alaion be.

Bazve and Kunli sit behind him, talking about axes. Terregar has known dwarves in his time, not least his companion Rovia, but he never knew there was quite so much to be said about axes. That’s all Kunli and Bazve have talked about together. Still, it’s been a reasonably calm and restful few days, and Terregar feels his reserves of strength are at their peak, as he wonders what their upcoming battle will be like. Salfarin and Alaion seem confident, and Kunli has sharpened all his axes, so there’s nothing to do but feel the boat slide up through the rushing current and wait.

The waterfall opens like parted curtains. Terregar twitches, stifling a gasp as he looks at the water flowing around an invisible arch, the dark gap between. Salfarin’s still smiling, and Alaion is looking right at Terregar with a little crease at the corner of his thin lips, so Terregar gives him a nod and holds still, breathing evenly, keeping himself ready. The boat slides up to the gap and into it, darkness falling, the rush of water the only sound, and when Terregar looks back the waterfall has closed behind them, resuming its normal course.

The passageway beneath is pitch-dark. Alaion silently produces a palmful of light but there’s nothing to see by it, nothing but the smell of wet rock and the receding rush of the waterfall. When it’s almost silent another, greener light blooms before them, opening as they approach to show a little green clearing in a thick dark wood.

At last they emerge from the rock tunnel, into a gentle stream. Terregar looks up and around — it looks like any clearing full of soft grass in the midst of a forest, but that the trees seem close together, their spaces thickly crammed with bushes and undergrowth, and there are no animals to be seen, not even little things. He takes a deep breath and smells grass and damp earth and no magic, benign or foul.

No magic at all, not even the background thrum of the world.

Terregar sets one hand on his belt dagger, on the crystal in it that provides immunity to enchantments, but nothing changes. He twitches out to the tips of his ears.

But Salfarin is beaching the boat on the stream’s pebbly edge. It seems they’ve arrived. Checking his belt once more — two pouches of healing supplies, one of vials, and his dagger — Terregar clambers to his feet and follows the sorcerers half-elven and full-elven off the boat, managing not to trip over the side. Kunli clanks behind him, and Bazve as ever brings up the rear.

And then in an eye blink there’s a Man in long shimmering robes walking towards them, his round ears adorned with sparkling earrings all along their upper curve, his wavy golden brown hair held with a shining circlet, his face handsome and open as he smiles and extends his arms. Salfarin smiles as well, and Terregar almost stops there, but he can hear Kunli clanking along directly behind him and doesn’t want to be run into. But what are they walking towards?

“Greetings, Brother!” calls the Man, and now he’s close enough to see laugh-crinkles edging his grey eyes. Salfarin waves and strides faster, and walks right into the Man’s arms, and they share a tilt of eyes, a length of nose —

Terregar stops. Or he means to, but now he smells magic like incipient lightning, and his feet keep carrying him, and his hand won’t touch his dagger, and his mouth won’t open. He can’t turn and look to Bazve either. He _knows_ Bazve. He wouldn’t’ve willingly brought Terregar into an ambush. 

Salfarin and the Man are _kissing_ , delving into each other’s mouths, and Alaion is grinning wide like a toothy fish, and Terregar’s stomach is sinking. Kunli booms a laugh behind him and Bazve is strangely silent. Salfarin and the Man pull themselves out of their kiss and the Man waves them all in like a proud host. “Welcome, my friends!” He says cheerfully, “welcome to the home of the Warlock of Whitewater. I’m certain you’ll enjoy your stay.” 

“However short it will be,” Salfarin adds, and giggles. Leaden dread wells up within Terregar like blood from an internal wound. His feet carry him right up to the Warlock, who smiles at him as fondly as at a little child. Terregar would grind his teeth if he could.

“What have we here?” asks the Warlock, reaching to cup Terregar’s chin in a wrinkled, leathery grip at odds with his almost-young face. “Two gifts?” He unwinds his arm from around Salfarin to gesture, and Bazve grunts. It’s not a happy sound.

“We thought you’d like the big one, my Lord,” says Alaion, lifting his hand to crook a finger, and Bazve stumbles into Terregar’s arc of vision, his long-axe clutched awkwardly in both hands. “Full of vitality, this one, should fuel your youth for years to come. But then he brought this tender morsel of a healer along, and let me say, we’ve had a time keeping off him. Isn’t he a sweet little thing?” 

“I told Alaion,” Salfarin says in sulky tones, “we could make him sleep and heal him after we’d had our pleasure night by night,” as Terregar comprehends and his blood runs chill, “but nooooo, he insisted we’d keep him fresh and unspoilt for you.”

“Thank you, Alaion,” says the Warlock, light laughter in his voice, his creased fingers stroking Terregar’s cheek. “Unwrap my presents then, will you?”

“ ** _Strip_ ,**” Alaion says over Terregar’s head, and he hears Bazve’s axe thump to the ground, followed by the jingle of chain mail. But then Alaion turns his eyes to Terregar, and now they’re slitted like a cat’s, and his fingers are crooked like claws when he raises them, flame dancing at their ends. “So pretty,” he croons, and Terregar wants to spit in his face but his mouth’s dry with fear even were it under his control. Alaion rakes one hand down Terregar’s front from throat to belly, and four fine hot lines sear along his skin, as his clothes part, cloak and jerkin and padded mail-shirt, good clothes worth some money, breeches and under breeches and even the boots. Everything he’s wearing just splits open and falls down and off him, leaving him mother-bare and shaking with thwarted rage.

“Oh, yes,” purrs the Warlock, running his awful hand over Terregar’s brow, up into his hair, fingering his eartip. “Look at _you_ ,” and Terregar has never wanted to cover himself so badly in his life, and can only stand there, arms at his sides, skin under the open air. Without his clothes now he can _feel_ the magic suppressing his, like a too-tight garment encasing his whole body. He tries to glare and the Warlock’s smile widens, showing a glint of teeth. “Come with me,” the Warlock says, sinking his hand into Terregar’s curls, and Terregar walks out of the pile of his shredded clothing as if he didn’t want to do anything else. Alaion steps in behind him, reaching to run spidery fingers down the back of his neck, and all Terregar can do is grit his teeth as the Warlock leads them some short distance.

Salfarin gestures and a table rises from the grass, ornately carven with runes that hurt to look at, laden with bottles of wine and jeweled goblets. The Warlock leaves Terregar and Bazve to stand as he leads Alaion and Kunli to the table and pours deep red wine for them. “Thank you, my Lord,” Kunli says in a strangely deferential tone, and as they drink Terregar struggles to shift his toes, and fails. 

“You are always welcome,” the Warlock says graciously, looking past him at Terregar again, dreadful hunger in his eyes. “Now let’s disport ourselves awhile, shall we?”

“May I cut off that one’s head, then?” Asks Kunli, pointing his axe at Bazve, who can only grunt in response, which is more than Terregar can manage.

Alaion and Salfarin laugh merrily. “So impatient!” Salfarin says. “He’s not the orcspawn who raped you, he’s likely younger than you are.”

“My favorite axe needs another notch,” Kunli growls, and Terregar remembers to be afraid for someone besides himself.

“Wouldn’t you peak a time or two first? Besides, the ritual captures most power at sunset.” Salfarin’s tone turns wheedling and Terregar wonders how he _ever_ thought well of this treacherous snake. “You may have first turn after our Lord.”

Kunli tilts his head, considering, and nods, as if they have any right, any of them. Said Warlock rubs his hands together gleefully and raises them in a showy gesture, and his robes peel up and away from him, like Terregar’s did but far less destructively.

Beneath he is well built, a little soft around the edges like a scholar might be, but that now Terregar can smell the malevolent magic rolling off him, and nearly gags. The Warlock steps up to Terregar and presses his forefinger to the spot between Terregar’s eyes.

The magical compulsion releases, and Terregar growls and flings himself forward, fists first. The Warlock laughs and grips his wrists and bears down with full weight, knocking Terregar flat, pinning his wrists in one hand as he knocks Terregar’s thighs apart with his other hand and pins them with his hips, and the other three laugh and laugh and Terregar’s face burns like his heart.

He can’t fight. He forces himself to go limp, to stop providing a show, and the Warlock strokes his cheek with that dry seamed hand. “Oh, you darling little thing,” the Warlock purrs, wedging his hips between Terregar’s thighs and his knees beneath Terregar’s back, leaning forward to keep Terregar’s wrists pinned as he systematically squeezes Terregar all over with his other hand, groping all across his front. He curls that hand around Terregar’s prick and eggs, sees Terregar’s full-body wince, and laughs again. “I should kiss you but you mustn’t bite me, or my brother will set you afire before we’ve even had a tup, let alone the ritual.” He taps Terregar’s lips, and Terregar sets his teeth and doesn’t bite only because of the threat. “And wouldn’t that be a waste? Now what do you say?”

“Get off me,” Terregar says, though he _knows_ all they’ll do is laugh. And so they do. 

The Warlock cups his cheek, fingers sunk in his hair, and shakes Terregar’s head at the same time he does his. “Such manners! All right, then. Behave or my brother shall set your big friend there afire, and we’ll hold you to watch while he burns. How’s that, my sweeting?”

What can Terregar say to that? He closes his eyes, and the Warlock bends to kiss him with false tenderness, lets go his wrists to gather him close like a snake wreathing its prey. Terregar shudders with nausea as the Warlock’s tongue squirms into his mouth. The last Man who kissed him without leave he sliced cheek to chin with his dagger, the one lying uselessly twenty paces behind him. Now all he can do is lie on soft grass, inside strong arms, and absolutely not want them.

Or, worse, not want to want them. But before this past week he spent months lying with his lover every night, accustoming his body to an amorous press. The Warlock gropes down his back and clutches his arse, pulling their hips together, Terregar’s prick up against his hard slick one, and Terregar feels a shock of arousal and then of horror. No, not this.

“Mmm, yes,” the Warlock murmurs over Terregar’s wet mouth, rubbing up against him. “Yes, my juicy morsel. Join me in pleasure.” Terregar growls, biting his lip on what he’d say, and the Warlock kisses between his eyes and murmurs, “speak freely.”

“This is no pleasure,” Terregar bursts out, despite knowing better. “None of this is by my will. You’re violating me.”

The Warlock just laughs and laughs, vibrating against Terregar’s chest, up alongside his prick and eggs. “Oh dear, I suppose I am,” he says, lightly as ever, and kisses Terregar again, and Terregar digs his fingers into the grass to keep from clawing at him. “My father taught me to take what I want,” he says, and Terregar twists his head away, pushing one ear against the grass as if he could block them both. Why do the vilest villains always love to speechify? “When he assembled his collection of beautiful servants, including my brother’s mother, a pretty Elf. So I learned and took all the knowledge I could wring from my teachers. And then I took his remaining life, wrung out of him to lengthen mine.” His fingers sharpen on Terregar’s cheek and arse, digging into his flesh. “Now I have you, my pretty little healer.” He rocks back, dragging his hand down the length of Terregar’s spine to tug his arsecheeks apart, shifting his hips to aim himself.

Hot panic spikes in Terregar’s chest and he throws his hands up. “No! No, don’t!”

The Warlock pauses, looking down at Terregar’s face, and he knows he’s being toyed with, he _knows_ , but at the expectant tilt of his head Terregar clasps his hands together and desperately adds, “please.”

The Warlock smiles, bright and wide. “Oh, I could listen to you beg awhile, but that you set my blood afire. Mayhap I will later. But for now—“ as he pushes his hips up hard, pushing his prick against Terregar’s hole like a battering ram, “now I shall tup you.” 

“No,” Terregar insists, pushing against the Warlock’s belly, squeezing as tight as he can, and the Warlock’s smile grows wider, he lifts one hand and quite deliberately makes a fist and strikes Terregar across the face, because he can.

Terregar cries out, and the Warlock’s cockhead breaches his resistance, and he screams at the searing dry invasion. Whenever his lovers have entered him they’ve dandled and stroked and suckled him first, caressed him with salve into easing, but this is all intrusion and heavy pain. The Warlock grunts between parted teeth and snaps his hips and gets himself further into Terregar, who writhes helplessly, shoving at him, spitted upon him. The Warlock shoves again and this time their bodies thump flush, his ballsack smacking Terregar’s arse and Terregar’s hole burning around his cock all the way up, too far up, too far in.

Terregar screams and feels it reverberate around the invasion within him, sobs and finds hot tears rolling down his face. The Warlock wriggles his hips in an awful little circle and says, mildly, only a touch winded, “You can put your little fists down now, sweeting, unless you’d rather touch yourself for me. Or I can set your friend afire and we can watch him burn as we tumble, your choice.”

Terregar, feeling sick all through, pulls his hands down, away from his aching prick, and presses them to the earth at his sides. The Warlock curls down to kiss his forehead and straightens up to pull back, feeling as if he’s dragging Terregar’s guts with him, and slams back in, sending a wave of pain up into Terregar that knocks another scream from his mouth.

It’s not just pain. It’s the rough careless stroke across that ridge of pleasure buried within Terregar, within lads generally as his healer’s training taught him. “What an uncommon tightness,” the Warlock comments, and slams into him again, and Terregar sobs from his depths, feeling the spark within the ache, the answering pulse in his prick. He clenches, and feels the Warlock’s pleased groan as much as hears it, and hates himself for accustoming his body to this pleasure. He stares up into the blameless blue sky, unwilling to see Bazve chained down by magic or to watch his betrayers enjoying his pain, and feels tears stream across his wavering sight as each thrust knocks a sob up out of him and builds the unwilling pleasure inside him.

Soon he’s throbbing and the Warlock is slamming into him hard enough to jerk his whole body and it hurts so keenly but not enough. The Warlock laughs breathily and closes his hand around Terregar’s prick, and now it’s soft and slick; he shoves Terregar bodily up into his illusion-laced grasp, and Terregar thrashes his head and squeezes his eyes shut till he sees red but he can’t not feel soft warmth cradling his prick in counterpoint with bludgeoning pain inside him, pulling in tandem with those sparks of unwanted pleasure —

The Warlock drags Terregar’s pleasure out of him like a fistful of his innards, lightning up his spine and down his nerves as he arches and howls. But the blood rushing in his ears can’t drown out the Warlock’s triumphant wordless shout or the noxious audience’s cheers, and the Warlock riding him harder than ever knocks the last few shreds of his breath away as the least delightful peak of his life rattles through his body. Gasping and emptied Terregar feels entirely torn away from himself, watching the Warlock gripping his hips and slamming into him as if from a great distance until the Warlock tosses his head back, clearly enjoying his own peak.

Suddenly pain and airlessness jerk Terregar back into his aching body, and he starts crying in earnest as he hasn’t since he was a faunt, grass-scented palms pressed to his face as the Warlock pants over him and whoops and pats his belly. “Even sweeter than I’d expected,” the Warlock rumbles, rubbing his sticky hand on Terregar’s belly, and Terregar swallows hard and chokes down the sobs and clenches his hands into fists so he can glare.

The Warlock doesn’t get off him. He smiles maddeningly and stays where he is, leaning over Terregar, still buried painfully inside Terregar. But something flickers. Terregar shuts his eyes and drags his mind together, though every heaving breath presses his body around the Warlock’s continued intrusion. He can feel the Warlock’s magic flickering with his heartbeat as he recovers from peaking. He could gather his own healing magic and wait the gap and attack skin to skin with an Unhealing.

But he never has. Healers are sworn not to Unheal any living thing. Terregar fights himself, and gasps in agony, and again when the Warlock drags that cock out and out of him and the chance is lost. 

Between frustration and pain, Terregar feels tears press hot within his eyes again, and bites his lip against them. He cannot give them that. Never mind he knows they’ll take it soon enough.

The noxious crew is applauding but a large hand lands on Terregar’s side and he flinches before he thinks, then manages to shudder to stillness and push his eyes open. Bazve is leaning over him, big dark eyes full of pain. “I’m sorry,” he rumbles. “I’m so sorry.”

Terregar wants to be angry. Stripped, humiliated, newly ravaged, Terregar wants to be very angry. But Bazve has been his friend since their halfling town took in some orphaned half-orcs and grew them to record size. So he exhales, and tries to smile, and says, “I know, they tricked us both —“

Bazve goes rigid and stands jerkily. Terregar looks past to find Alaion directing Bazve’s movement with gestures, and shuts his eyes again, pulling his knees to his chest as he listens to Kunli’s clanking steps. This is far, far from over, and it will end with his and Bazve’a deaths unless Terregar can find their way out. For the present he takes a deeper breath and lets it go, goes limp on the grass and grits his teeth and waits his moment.

Unlike the Warlock, Kunli’s remained clothed; Terregar feels chainmail and dwarven heft settle on his back, and takes another breath, and says nothing. Something smooth slides across his palm and he closes his fingers on the little flat rock, anything to cling to as Kunli pushes bluntly into him. At least Kunli doesn’t say anything to him, just pounds away at him with steady grunting and armor scraping his back, but Terregar’s thoughts remain his own. Or he tries to keep them, but the endless pounding smashes his resolve, and beyond he can hear the avid audience commenting and cheering. Kunli finishes with brutal thrusts and strips him off like an aching glove, and Terregar curls tighter and just lies there on the grass, beneath the breeze, soreness pulsing deep inside. Presently he considers he must be in shock. 

Unfortunately the pounding blood rushing through his ears deafens him to what he should have noticed. A hard hand clamps over his hip, a long bony intrusion drives him out of shock into screaming pain, his throat burning as he arches and twists, trying to get away. Salfarin smirks down at him and holds him fast with bodily strength alone, emphasizing how small and helpless Terregar is as he shoves those hard fingers into him again, and Terregar’s eyes burn as he cries out again, shoving at Salfarin’s arm with both hands. To think he ever admired Salfarin’s confidence, now unveiled as arrogance.

“Wakey wakey,” Salfarin says as if to a child, and Terregar grits his teeth and tries to growl but it comes out broken and high on another stab of pain. “We let you have a little nap but now you must rejoin the proceedings, sweeting.” Terregar wants nothing more than to spit at the endearment, and only barely remembers Bazve held hostage to his cooperation. “I watched earlier how beautifully you peaked for our Lord, so now you shall warm me up before our little tumble. I even brought real oil.” Not that he does aught but keep stabbing into Terregar with those sticklike fingers.

Terregar hears himself keen and his cheeks burn like he’s been lit afire and his arse burns around Salfarin’s cruel fingering and something within him cracks and falls asunder. Words begin falling from his mouth, begging, pleading, “please stop,” and “I can’t,” and tears run along with them from his eyes. “I can’t peak, I can’t.”

Salfarin stops, and the halt feels like a benediction for all Terregar’s hole throbs with soreness and his head with weeping. “Oh my little darling,” Salfarin tries to purr like the Warlock, but it comes out thinner and reedier from him. “All you had to do was ask,” as Terregar’s chest heaves and he clenches his fists together, as Salfarin actually withdraws those dreadful fingers. They gleam with only a thin thread of red until he wipes them on the grass, and Terregar manages to think enough to hope this shows him not too terribly injured.

Then Salfarin shifts onto his knees, lifting his robes to unfasten his codpiece. Of course. Of _course_. Terregar bites his lip but cannot stop himself from snarling, “Your cock’s the last thing I’d ever want.” Salfarin just laughs, the others laugh beyond, as Salfarin bares his member, long and thin like the rest of him. Terregar squeezes his eyes shut as Salfarin’s hand squeezes down on his hip again, and feels himself rolled and dragged bodily up over Salfarin’s thighs, cloth scraping his sore prick and belly.

Salfarin, busy sinking his searing rod into Terregar, calls over him, “My master Alaion, come share this bounty with me?”

Terregar clutches the little rock in his palm until its blunt edge dents into his skin. He remembers being had fore and aft, and having another so, for the delight of it upon a wild night or Springwelcome festival. Being forced to now… he knows how, at least, and reminds himself to breathe. He can get through this too. 

“Thank you, Salfarin!” Alaion has called, meanwhile. “My Lord, keep hold on our big one for me? He’s fighting me hard for all he looks so calm.” Terregar’s aching heart rises a wisp at that, at least. Thinking silent encouragement to Bazve, he keeps his eyes shut as if he can’t feel Salfarin busily slamming into him or hear Alaion’s robes whispering across the grass. He feels Alaion’s clawed fingers grip his chin and keeps his eyes shut as his face is pulled up. Nothing he’d see will help.

Alaion’s fingertips slide, paper-dry, across Terregar’s tightly closed lips. “What a ripe berry,” he hisses like the snake he is. “I don’t have to remind you not to bite, do I?”

Salfarin laughs and slaps Terregar’s arse on an out stroke. Terregar shudders and his eyelids pull up to let out his glare.

Alaion just smiles, rummaging beneath his robes, and Terregar prudently shuts his eyes again as Alaion tugs him forward and down.

His cock tastes as dry as the rest of him, his robes silky smothering darkness. At least it isn’t large enough to choke Terregar if he remembers to breathe, as Alaion holds him by the hair and methodically tups his mouth, sliding on his tongue. Salfarin and Alaion set a rhythm together, kissing far above Terregar pinned and shuddering between them. At least they forget to demand more of him than his body.

Elves take a long time at it. Terregar lets go the thread of time. Eventually Salfarin peaks in a wet gush and slides his knees from beneath Terregar’s belly, but keeps his grip on Terregar’s hips, pushing him into Alaion’s thrusts. Terregar remains sunk into a world filled with Alaion’s dusty scent like ancient scrolls, clawed fingers wound in Terregar’s curls and scraping razor-lines across his scalp, narrow prick prodding over and again into Terregar’s throat. He pulls back to peak across Terregar’s tongue, copious and bitter, pulls away and gets to his feet gasping. Salfarin laughs as he lets go, as Terregar curls up again, gagging and coughing.

Alaion’s dripping seed smears onto his hand, on the edge of the rock. Terregar pries open his eyes, even as he hurts all over within and without, even as his mouth overflows with bitterness, as a thought flickers in the depths of his mind. He reaches into himself, staring at his smeared hand, and pulls up the thought. Rune-magic and matter-magic.

He spares a glance up. Salfarin is handing Alaion a goblet as Kunli says aught and the Warlock sits at his ease watching them. For the moment Terregar has been discarded like a soiled handkerchief.

He clenches his eyes shut, feeling every smear of seed across his thighs and his chin, and then deliberately spits the last few drops of Alaion’s spendings onto the rock. With his thumb he quickly sketches a five-line star glyph, drying it with the barest wisp of enhanced warmth into a little white star spread across the blue-grey rock. He can do something with this. He doesn’t know what yet, but he will. 

He has barely closed his hand back around the pebble when a dark shadow rises at the corner of his vision. Bazve, moving with that same jerkiness from before, towards Terregar now. And his prick is up, dark and enpurpled with blood, a clear drop welling from the tip.

Terregar takes all this at once glance, and then hears the others cheering, and curls away, clenching in terror. No, no, this would be worse than all the others, both in body and in soul. Bazve’s huge liquid eyes are shut tight. He knows what they’re forcing him to do.

Terregar staggers to his feet, preparing to flee on shaking legs —

— and magic clamps down around him, and he folds down onto his knees as Bazve lumbers towards him.

Closer feet, shod in delicately embroidered boots, slide into Terregar’s vision as his heart hammers against his ribs like a bird in a too-small cage. The Warlock kneels before him, rich robes pooling on the grass, and strokes Terregar’s curls. “Such a magnificent creature your big friend is,” he purrs to Terregar, rubbing his back with the other hand though Terregar’s skin crawls beneath his gnarled touch. “No wonder you made his acquaintance.”

“No,” Terregar chokes up, and finds he can speak. He shouldn’t give them any words. But he looks at Bazve, standing at attention, and hates them for making him fear his friend, and can’t breathe for terror. “No, we grew up together, he’s my friend, don’t make him do this to me, _please_.”

“Don’t you want to make your friend feel good?” The Warlock asks, wrapping his arm across Terregar’s shoulders, holding him to slick robes and the firm hateful warmth of his body far within. “You can surely make any lad feel good with this sweet arse here,” as he runs his stroking hand down Terregar’s back. “What’s wrong with him that he doesn’t deserve a treat?”

Bazve stands by the Warlock, fingers dangling lax, upstanding prick bulging with a prominent vein. Terregar hasn’t seen Bazve uncovered since they were faunts together splashing in the streams. He’s never thought to. “Nothing’s wrong but what you’ve done to him!” Terregar can’t move to fight but the Warlock’s allowed him his voice and now he raises it, “You’ve no right to torment him nor me!”

The Warlock pulls his hand up into Terregar’s curls again, and wrenches his head back. “You’re so winsome in your earnestness,” he says mildly, which is worse than if Terregar had succeeded in angering him. “Not that you’ll need to know this for long, but you should understand, my comely bauble, I have every right. Because I have the power, and you and your friend will reach your highest purpose reinvigorating my power. But then, I cannot blame you,” as Bazve shuffles around behind Terregar, who tries to shake his head, but the Warlock holds him fast. “He led you into a trap, you must not want to tumble with someone who betrayed you.”

“That’s not true,” Terregar cries out as soon as his mouth will open, so Bazve will hear him if no one else will. “None of this is his fault. I just can’t, even if he’d want this, which I can tell you he doesn’t! Don’t you dare make him!” 

The Warlock taps Terregar’s nose tip. “Aren’t you endearing. I could almost wish to keep you.” Terregar’s belly goes cold at that horror of a thought, but the Warlock shakes his head. “But I swore off keeping pets awhile ago. My brother can tell you what happened last time I tried.”

“No one gets to usurp you but me,” Salfarin calls, and they laugh at their shared jest, before the Warlock turns back to Terregar, caressing his ear, tweaking his eartip. Bazve’s broad hands, spanning Terregar’s sides from armpit past waist, settle around him with cruel gentleness.

“Please,” Terregar tries again, unable to stop. “Please, my _Lord_ ,” he chokes out, and the Warlock smiles wide, eyes crinkling. “Please don’t do this to him. You can —“ but here his mouth sticks fast on the brave words he’d thought to say.

The Warlock understands anyway, teeth glinting in his grin. “Yes, I can. I can do all to you I wish, and I will.” He tweaks Terregar’s nipple now, which throbs in his hold. “I shall glut myself on you before the sundown sacrifice. And right now I shall watch that gigantic viridian phallos sink into your little rosy arse.” He pushes Terregar down, head and chest resting on his silk-draped thigh. “I’ll even cosset you through it. Am I not merciful?”

“No,” is all Terregar can say, before the horribly broad nudge of Bazve’s prick freezes his lungs in gut-deep terror. This is how he’ll die, spitted on his friend’s prick, and never see his lover Zimel or his companions ever again. This is how Bazve will die, in horror at having killed him. _I’m sorry, Bazve_ , he thinks, as the horrid pressure increases and increases.

Bazve’s prickhead pops in through the abused ring of his hole, and Terregar clenches his fists tightly as he helplessly screams and the Warlock laughs, salt on his wounds. Bazve is very strong and the next stroke feels like Terregar’s being broken open, like he must split into two aching halves. But he doesn’t burst, he aches and sobs into silk as Bazve pulls back, as the Warlock toys with his eartip and rubs between his shoulderblades. Bazve shoves in again, stretching, straining, searing him open and Terregar’s throat burns for screaming, his thighs shake beneath even a portion of Bazve’s weight, as the Warlock inhales on an intrigued noise. Bazve pulls back and Terregar’s whole body shudders, hollowing out; Bazve shoves in again and agony pulls Terregar’s spine into a taut arch as he howls helplessly around the pain.

“Oh look at you take it,” the Warlock coos to Terregar, shifting his knees further down beneath him, as Terregar shudders bonelessly in his lap. “ _ **You, speed up**_ ,” and another horrible slam invades Terregar’s struggling body, knocking away his breath, this scream more than half a gasp. “Just one more thing…” as he reaches to grip Terregar’s prick and all Terregar can do for protest is cry out sharply, and then choke on agony at the next thrust. “In truth,” he murmurs to Terregar, “I should shift back and give your big friend —“ as Terregar cries out again, uncontrollably, “give him room to get his back into it. But I’m too selfish to not want to watch you—“ Terregar wants to shout out his rage and pain, and can only scream— “watch you peak again. I must apologize —“ as Terregar screams again from his depths to the uncaring sky. “How my lazy brother forgot to bring you to your pleasure.”

 _Pleasure?_ Terregar would laugh, low and grim, if he weren’t screaming each time Bazve plunges into him, blunt and battering as a gate-breaker, if he weren’t gasping around the waves of dull ache and sharper agony filling him between thrusts. The Warlock shakes his wrist, rippling falsely slick fingers around Terregar’s prick, which throbs in answer though Terregar bites his lip fit to make it bleed, but what’s one more pain among all this hurt? The pulses of terrible sensation make Terregar flutter like a belly-cramp around the massive cock inside him, a crinkle of intensified torment, and he whimpers, and hates himself for being so weak.

“Yes, my little darling,” the Warlock purrs to him, holding him by the nape, stroking him fast, making him clench agonizingly again and again around Bazve’s prick shoving heavily inside him. Each squeeze lights all his insides up with pain, and this is the furthest from any pleasure Terregar has felt by his own or another’s hand. 

Still, as if dragged up from great depths, again as if torn out of his innards, Terregar clenches up into a peak as searing as a lightning strike, burning down all his nerves like he’s been set alight from the inside out. The massive force of it momentarily deafens and blinds him to all else in his torturous existence, until he falls back into himself cradled in silks and being pounded into by an achingly oversized prick, his ears catching the incongruous noise of the Warlock sucking his own fingers dry. 

Shoved beyond screaming, Terregar can only gasp, over and over, as Bazve plunges within him again and again, his whole body shoved up with each inthrust and sliding back with every drag out. Bazve grunts, deep enough to feel, and as the Warlock pets Terregar’s open mouth with damp fingers he murmurs, “ _ **go ahead**_ ,” in a falsely kind voice.

Bazve rams in so deep Terregar can almost feel it in back of his throat, his trembling shaking Terregar as he spurts, and spurts again, and a third wet gush. And then they hold there, as the others holler noxious praises, and Terregar lies in the Warlock’s lap shuddering and gasping, every twinge wringing a little cry of pain out of him.

The Warlock is breathing heavily above him, and Terregar didn’t know he had fear left to feel. “Oh, magnificent,” he says, voice alight with excitement and lust. “ _ **Go on, sit back**_ ,” and Bazve drags that heavy prick out of Terregar’s battered innards, out and out and finally out, a low moan sliding from Terregar’s mouth when he’s finally emptied with a slick sucking noise.

The Warlock pulls his slippery robed legs from beneath Terregar, and Terregar slumps onto the heated grass, unable to even think of beginning to move any raw part of himself even though he _knows_ what’s coming, as the Warlock showers horrid praises on him and kneels behind him. “You take being tupped so gorgeously. I should summon a construct or five to keep you permanently jiggling and peaking and filled.” His robes whisper and rustle as he hikes them up and Terregar presses his overheated face to the grass and wishes the earth would swallow up his aching body. But they’d just pull him out, most likely. 

He tries to go limp, tries not to respond, but the Warlock grips him eagerly and draws a finger across his raw hole, provoking a hiss at the flare of pain. “Not bad,” the Warlock pronounces, though Terregar’s _certain_ he’s the furthest thing from a healer. “Hardly touched at all,” is not at all how Terregar feels. “Come here, my bauble.” 

“No,” Terregar breathes, knowing no one will hear, and tries to brace himself as the Warlock leans over him, slippery robes slithering across his back, but then he’s impaled, again, and the hot pressure behind his eyes bursts forth into a sob. How he hurts, sore beyond sore, and exhausted, and helplessly _angry_ at what they’ve done to him just because they could, the complete inverse of the wanderer’s creed to do happenstance acts of good. He aches and sobs as the Warlock violates him once more, raining down such praise as “how tight and hot you are, my sweeting. What a lovely arse you possess. I thought ‘twould be like dropping a sausage in a well by now, but oh the delight of you.” 

Terregar clings to the grass and the rock, sprawled on his belly in the dirt, and sobs around the pain being battered into him thrust by thrust, letting the rush of hot blood through his ears dull the noise of the Warlock’s talkative pleasure. He notices how the Warlock’s pounding speeds up when the Man’s getting close, and how he hates knowing that. At last, long last, the Warlock peaks, pummeling Terregar through it, and he shudders with ragged aftershocks, shaking Terregar as well. Terregar notices that flickering in his magic again as well, and the reminder is hot and angry in his chest, unfurling the ideas developing within his aching head.

Outwardly, Terregar presses his hands to his face and otherwise lets himself lie where he’s dropped, as the Warlock clambers to his feet puffing and blowing and saying “oh, my inner robes must be filthy now, but that was worth it.” Knowing they’ll all concentrate on each other for the while, Terregar pushes his knees beneath himself and reaches back to at least check his injury.

Even the lightest touch of his own fingertips makes him hiss again, and his attempt to drag his fingers through the slick mess and chart his own hurts ends very quickly on an overwhelmed whimper. Still, when he pulls his hand before him, only his fingertips are smeared with blood alone. He’s bleeding less than he might have expected.

He presses the longest fingertip to the center of the star, imprinting his will in blood upon it, before scrubbing his hand against the grass. 

“My apologies, little healer,” the Warlock calls, and Terregar jerks his head up, which sends a spike of pain through it. But the Warlock is merely smiling indulgently as he sits between Alaion and Salfarin, leaning against the latter’s shoulder. “You can’t heal yourself right now. Your God cannot hear you in my Sanctum. None can.” 

Terregar drops his head, shaking around the violent bloom of hope inside his chest, as he dimly listens to the Warlock proclaiming how “the little bit took it out of me” and “Brother, let me rest my head awhile in your lap.” The Warlock doesn’t realize Terregar’s not a cleric. He’s a mage, taught by the venerable Wenamin himself. It’s just that his intuitive tendencies run towards healing, and the old gnome wanted to teach constructive magic after so many years of destruction, so that’s most of what Terregar learned.

But it’s not all. “When I wake we’ll take him together,” the Warlock murmurs, “both our phalloses snugged together into that juicy little arse,” loudly enough to hear, but the apprehensive roil inside Terregar isn’t nearly as harsh as it could be. If he can carry off his new-formed plan, they’ll never get the chance to touch him again.

“We should bind him meanwhile,” Salfarin advises, and not for the first time this day Terregar wishes he had learnt how to set someone aflame with a glance. 

The Warlock, already curled over his lap, waves this off sleepily. “He’s done in, and where should he run to anyway?”

“True, true.” Salfarin bends to kiss the Warlock, clearly enjoying holding him, as if they were any pair of beaus, not half-brother lovers bent on working blood magic at sundown. 

“I know what we’ll do,” Alaion says, and then, “ _ **pick him up**_.” Terregar has a moment to ready himself before Bazve’s massive hands gather him up, his arms cradling Terregar in a parody of tenderness. “There, we can hold them both at once.”

“Wake me an hour to sundown,” the Warlock orders drowsily, and shortly begins to snore. Still, Terregar doubts he has such a length of time; his luck can hardly have turned so sharply on this dreadful day. Quickly as he can, though every movement makes him wince, he curls tight in Bazve’s hold and whispers into the glyph on the stone. 

Soon enough, Alaion and Salfarin’s soft conversation is broken into when Kunli takes a noisy slurp of wine and announces, “Well, your sorcerous chat leaves me bored, I’m but an honest axe-hand. I think I’ll go rut the halfling and follow our Lord in a nap.”

“Don’t damage him too much,” Alaion says negligently as Terregar swallows hard and clutches both hands around the newly-formed glyph-stone. “We wouldn’t want him to turn sour, or worse, die on us before the sundown ritual. You’d only get to chop off one head!”

“If he didn’t die on the orcspawn’s prick I doubt my lad can hurt him,” Kunli says, laughing, clanking. This is the moment. As his heart thumps triple time, Terregar presses the base of one foot as close to Bazve’s heart as he can, circulating a little channel of healing between them. “I bet we could shove a log up that pink rump!”

“Could we work that into the spell?” Salfarin asks, and Terregar steadies himself against the shuddersome image with the thought of their impending distress. Kunli clanks nearer and nearer, his steps wavering a bit with drink.

At five paces Terregar _**reaches**_. Shifting a patient’s life-energy towards one organ or another is a basic technique, and doesn’t precisely count as Unhealing, even when Terregar drags all of Alaion’s life he can grasp into the drop of seed scrawled across the glyphstone, lighting it up with pale fire. Alaion does him the favor of choking noisily and collapsing into a thrashing fit, which pulls Salfarin’s attention at the last needed moment.

Terregar narrows his eyes as Kunli’s widen, and gathers up all the rage and pain of this loathsome afternoon, and shouts at the top of his lungs, “ _ **lucem ferre!**_ ” sending everything up in a brilliant explosion of white light —

* * *

Terregar sees red light through his eyelids, and is surprised. He’s lying in a soft bed, and still he hurts all over, and sorest in his arse, which seems distinctly unfair for any afterlife. So he’s likely still alive, which he was not precisely expecting.

Long fingers are folded around his bandaged, burnt hand. He opens his gummy eyes and sees Zimel, beautiful Zimel with raven’s wing hair and high hawk nose, his gold-green eyes rimmed red. Zimel is looking straight at Terregar, and when he sees Terrie’s eyes open he smiles. 

Terrie smiles back, and then remembers, and urgently asks, “Bazve? Where’s —“ his raspy voice breaks entirely, and Zimel nods, patting his hand. 

“He’s safe. He’s safe. When he next wakes I’ll bring him to you. He’s been asking for you as well. Let me answer all your questions, all right? At least all those I can guess. And then you can try to talk, though the healers will disapprove.”

Terrie rolls his eyes at that, and Zimel grins, but he once would have laughed. Terrie’s heart, lifted by the good news of Bazve, aches at that thought, and he reaches to fold both his hands into Zimel’s.

Zimel brushes his archer-calloused fingers along Terrie’s cheek, and it’s as if fouler touches are swept away by this welcome one. “You’re a hero, Terrie Whittle. You vanquished the Warlock of Whitewater. Village bards are singing your praises, and Mulfie is busily composing as we speak.” Terrie rolls his eyes again, his cheeks growing hot, and Zimel caresses him again. “When we got your note I begged Sineale to go after you, and she agreed. She said we might provide reinforcements and share the treasure, and either way she wanted our healer back. And of course so did I. I must beg your pardon, no, don’t shake your head. I must. But I must tell you what happened first.

“We had come up the river to the waterfall, and were stymied as to how to proceed, when we saw a huge white flash above and behind the river’s ridge, and both magic-workers clutched their heads and winced. As soon as she could lift her head, Sineale said, ‘that was Terregar’, and before I had time to more than worry she had crushed her biggest ruby to teleport us there. We found a blasted crater, and —“ 

Here Zimel winces, looking away a moment, pressing his hand to his eyes, and Terrie’s heart smites him, all he can do is hold on tight. “We found you stripped bare and looking dead in the center, and the Warlock of Whitewater stunned with his servants, and Bazve lying in a stream, pushing himself up on his arms and bellowing. I admit I held him at arrow point, but Mulfie said she could smell the compulsion on him, so I let him go, and he smashed the dwarf’s head in with his bare fists. Rovia got to chop the others’ heads off — you know how she enjoys that.” 

Terrie chuckles, and winces at his aching throat, and makes a note never to ask her if all dwarves so enjoy beheading. He owes Sineale much for using her greatest red gem to come rescue him, and atop replacing all his gear… well, it doesn’t bear thinking on at the moment, in sickbed.

“We also recovered all your pouches and your dagger, though most of the clothes are a loss.” Zimel shakes his head, but Terrie shrugs — that’s better than what he was expecting. “At any rate, when the towns and villages around heard we’d killed the Warlock of Whitewater, and their magic-workers sensed his baleful influence draining away from his forest, the rewards proved pleasantly plentiful. Let’s just say that after replacing Sineale’s ruby and sending a tithe to the Shieldmaiden’s temple on Rovia’s behalf, we still have a tidy sum. We set aside an extra share for you.”

Terrie’s eyes hurt at that, and he waves it off, but Zimel catches his hand, and now his green eyes blaze. “It’s the least we could do after how grievously you were hurt. It’s the… I thought you were dead when we found you, Terrie. I thought you were dead and I’d have to bury you, I’d never be able to apologize for belittling you. I just wanted to tell you how beautiful you are but I wounded your pride and drove you into the clutches of those who hurt you.” Tears crest and run down his cheeks and Terrie’s eyes ache in sympathy. “I’m so sorry. I can never say it enough.”

Terrie opens his mouth, croaks, and shifts and curls to kiss Zimel’s knuckles instead. He _was_ prideful and through it he fell right into a trap it cost him considerable pain to escape. Zimel folds down to wrap his arms around Terrie, and Terrie buries his face in Zimel’s neck and holds on tight, and they don’t need any more words.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Kipling's poem "If--" which is all about being a man. (As opposed to specifically a Man.)


End file.
